


Chasing Ghosts

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Series: Infinity War Fix It [17]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 03:24:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15524997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: What a mess we have on our hands tonight, chasing ghosts we left behind.





	Chasing Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary from Feenixpawl's "Ghosts."

Jane blinked in surprise when she was faced with an entire team of warriors. Nebula was in battle gear and had her weapons out, facing off with Okoye in her brilliant red armor and spear. "I call winner!" Valkyrie called out, gently nudging Jane out of the way. "This is the training salle," she explained to Jane. "You want the lab with the other ones doing science stuff."

"I'm supposed to be the Fleet Navigator. I thought I'd introduce myself to the rest of the staff."

Valkyrie looked like she was trying to suppress a snicker, but nodded. "Well then. Not that we have such exalted titles right now, but we have Nebula and Okoye over there as the head security team once we're out in space. I suppose Fleet Security and Personnel Security would be titles if we had to make them up."

"I've heard that there is going to be a fleet of robots modeled after the old Stark bots to help provide security," Jane said faintly. "There's a team assembling them."

"Yeah, well, I don't spend time with that group," Valkyrie said cheerfully. "I'm fighting or drinking."

"You sure that's healthy?" Jane asked, looking at Valkyrie in concern.

"Aw, that's sweet." It wasn't quite a sneer, but was close. "I fully intend to drink myself to death someday. Being of Asgardian stock, it'll take quite a long time."

Jane didn't quite reach out to touch Valkyrie or give her a hug, though she looked as though she wanted to do so. Valkyrie wasn't even sure if she would allow it if the woman tried it. "But in the meantime? There's a plan, right? An actual plan and an actual fleet and army?"

"Regretting joining up?"

"Maybe?" Jane squeaked, features scrunching up slightly in her uncertainty.

That only seemed to amuse Valkyrie even more. "Good to know _someone_ in this outfit is actually sane!"

Sighing a little, she waited until the sparring seemed to be at a pause, then strode into the salle with her head high and a professional smile on her face; she had the look of a woman about to face a team of experts that wanted to tear apart her theories, and she was determined to prove them wrong and grind their reputations into dust. It was an attitude that Valkyrie could respect, and she leaned against the door frame, crossing her arms over her chest. She had a fond smile on her face; Thor certainly seemed to surround himself with strong people that were incredibly smart and talented. Perhaps it wasn't so bad to throw her lot in with these folk, though she still had her doubts about them sometimes.

It helped that Rocket was good on his word to start brewing some powerful alcohol.

"Hi," Jane chirped when everyone else stared at her. "Dr. Jane Foster. I've signed up to be the Fleet Navigator." She paused and stuck out her hand to shake with an awkward little grimace. "Signed up might be a bit of a stretch, but I'll do the calculations for the jumps and help track down the points of origin from the ships that had come here."

Okoye gave her an owlish look and grasped her hand tightly to shake it. "A pleasure to meet you."

Nebula just inclined her head. "Most of the nav computers were fried on Titan or on the way back here. Your Earth ships are awful, and even the technicians here trying to graft nav decks don't know what they're doing."

"Yours was one of the intact maps, right?" Jane asked, eyes lighting up. "I saw the collected map when Rocket was talking about it, and you've actually been to the places we're going."

The blue warrior glowered at her. "It's no pleasure trip."

"Of course not," Jane said, affronted. "But the nature of the jumps, Thor wasn't able to really tell me because he used the Bifrost or Stormbreaker most, and Rocket just said not to make too many in a row or it'll change the effective reality we're working with." She flashed Nebula a bright smile. "I would love to be able to get your take on actually being inside an Einstein-Rosen bridge! I might be able to recommend better shielding for the ships we have once I know the gravitational forces that they'll have to withstand."

Okoye bit her lip and tried not to smile at Nebula's flabbergasted expression. "What?"

"You have valuable knowledge about how the bridges work! Not on a mathematics level, that's why they have me here, but from a practical perspective! I wouldn't know the engineering side of it, but I can at least supply the math involved for the engineers to puzzle out. Otherwise, without the proper shielding in place, the first bridge will rip the ships apart and then everyone inside dies either of gravitational compression or asphyxiation from lack of oxygen."

Nebula blinked at her. "You seem oddly cheerful about that."

"About destruction? Oh, no, of course not!" Jane cried, leaning a little closer to try convincing Nebula of her sincerity. "No, I mean all of this used to be theoretical on this planet! It's amazing to be able to experience it first hand, to see what it's actually like. Isn't that amazing?" she asked, looking from Nebula to Okoye, then around to the other Dora Milaje. "There's so much pain and suffering and grieving, can't we try to look at the parts that aren't so awful?"

"That's... one way of looking at it," Okoye said, doubt still evident in her tone.

"I suppose as warriors, it's good to be aware of all the things to be on the lookout for, but I don't know any of that stuff. So I'll stick with the parts I _do_ know, and I know there's a whole universe of things out there that I've never seen before." She gave them all a warbling smile. "I survived and a lot of people I care about didn't. So I have to see it and experience it for them. I mean, this is terrifying, you know? I might have seen dark elves and constructs fight, but it's something I'm not good at."

That seemed to make sense to Nebula. "Others see things as you do. They don't last in the training halls."

"But there might be survivors?"

Nebula reluctantly nodded. "Perhaps. We're better off getting weapons and arming ourselves for battle."

"I'll let you do that," Jane offered, forcing a smile to her face.

"And on that note," Valkyrie called out from the doorway, uncrossing her arms and standing up straight, "time for us to go. Calculations to do and whatnot. Looked to me like Okoye won that one."

While Nebula didn't exactly growl, the glower almost seemed to imply that she would have. Valkyrie grinned at her, knowing that a fight between the two of them later would be especially savage. She was looking forward to that.

"Right. Well, you know where the engineers are at, right?" Jane asked Nebula with that same open faced honesty she had before. "Valkyrie wants to fight Okoye now, and if you know the way she won't have to double back for that fight."

Neubula sheathed her swords and glowered at the swaggering Valkyrie. "Next time, I'll fight _you."_

Valkyrie grinned. "Good."

She almost regretted not accompanying Jane to the science officers, but frankly, Valkyrie would rather not spend her time standing around being bored. It was far better to fight and train with the Dora, to see the strengths of Okoye, Ayo, and the other Dora for herself. 

And the more she moved around, the less she remembered of the past that threatened to choke her.

***

"Okay, everyone," Steve Rogers said, catching the attention of everyone in the room. He was in a Captain America styled uniform again, no longer looking haggard or run down. His eyes remained haunted, and the people closest to him had similar expressions. "We have several countries working on space craft, and the robotics to bolster our numbers have gotten most of the projected drones created. Our plan has a lot of moving parts to it, so we have several teams working on this."

Everyone sat at attention, and the overall plan contained two main prongs: ships and robots would attack several weapons depots and scour old training halls while another team would look for signs of Thanos and his current location. This wasn't simply a search, however; they were tasked with starting rumors of a seventh stone that could revert the Infinity Gauntlet's actions. Since Thanos was dead set on his conquest and killing, it was likely to draw him out.

"How do you suppose we're going to do that? He already got what he wanted," Rocket growled.

"Not to mention, we can't put innocent worlds at risk," Jane pointed out.

"Return to Titan," Tony declared, features drawn and jaw set. "He destroyed his home world first, right? Only fair to make that his prison. We fight and trap Thanos, remove the gauntlet."

"How?" Bruce asked, pulling a face. "That worked so well the last time."

Tony actually glared at him. "By cutting off his arm with one of his own weapons." In the stunned silence, he lifted his chin and Pepper rubbed his back encouragingly, her expression just as determined as his. "Turnabout's fair play, isn't it? Most weapons we have won't do a damn thing to him. But he ripped off part of my armor and stabbed me with it. I say, we take something we know will hurt him, and then _hurt him._ Then take the damn gauntlet away and use it to bring everyone back."

Jane looked on in concern. The warriors all around them seemed rather pleased with that plan, though a few of the scientists didn't. She suspected it had to do with outright murder and the change that grief had wrought on all of them. She hated the thought of murder on principle, of being pushed to this brink, and understood the impulse for what it was.

"Then what do we do with the gauntlet?" she asked quietly. That put a halt to the conversation flowing around them. "I've had the Aether inside me for a while. That kind of power? It's a lot, and it can twist and warp people in ways we can't predict. No single person is going to be able to hold onto the entire gauntlet if I couldn't withstand a single one."

Rocket was staring at her in open mouthed awe. "But most people touching the orb exploded. Even Quill couldn't withstand it alone, and he was half Celestial!"

She blinked at him. "Oh. So, having someone hold onto them is definitely not a good idea."

"Understatement of the century," Tony muttered.

"We're not going to be able to destroy them, either," Jane continued. "If they contain that much energy, releasing it all at once is probably capable of shattering a planet. We can probably separate and hide them like they were before, but then we'd have to be careful not to leave any clues behind."

"Or we run and don't stop," Natasha said in the ensuing silence. "Whoever's left, take a stone and run."

"But you can't hold it!" Rocket cried.

"We'll build containment fields, and then run," Steve offered.

Bruce was slouching in his seat. "We're all going to die."

"Do we have analysis on the stones? We can always find a way to counteract each type of radiation," Jane admonished him. "Like doing analysis on the data recorders in the space ships you do have means I can make the calculations on the armor needed to withstand gravity." She paused. "I'm sure the amount of gravitational pull in a black hole could potentially damage the stones, actually, but we wouldn't necessarily know how to direct them." Jane pursed her lips. "Would directing the stones into the heart of different stars make it difficult for anyone else to track them down?"

A number of faces stared at her, some in shock and some beaming with excitement. "And even better," Tony said, leaning forward as he warmed to her idea. "We make dupes of the stones and send out more than just the actual stones. Because if we're able to bring them back, the time and mind stones are spoken for. But we dupe the energy signature and send it out into space. Then it'll be a wild goose chase for whatever idiot that thinks they can pull this shit."

Steve nodded, expression still grave. "Think you can pull it off?"

Jane looked around the room and then shrugged. "We'll make it work. I know what's at stake here."

"Then let's do it," Steve said. "We'll make Thanos regret ever coming up with this plan."


End file.
